


Harmony for a Cat

by trustmeallnight



Series: Striped Tiger and his Love [2]
Category: NU'EST
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Tiger Hybrid Kang Dongho | Baekho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25354834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustmeallnight/pseuds/trustmeallnight
Summary: "Why does my chest feel so full when I'm with you?""Because you love me, and I love you."
Relationships: Choi Minki | Ren/Kang Dongho | Baekho, Hwang Minhyun/Kang Dongho | Baekho, Kang Dongho | Baekho/Aaron Kwak | Aron, Kang Dongho | Baekho/Everyone, Kang Dongho | Baekho/Kim Jonghyun | JR, side, tiny - Relationship
Series: Striped Tiger and his Love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840630
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	Harmony for a Cat

**Author's Note:**

> i never knew if i was going to write a sequel but then i did because i started with baekron and it escalated wow
> 
> but anyway 1/2 for baby's birthday uwu and also ty mins for suporting me because i really thought i was on a decline YIKES :-) love u
> 
> also this is a continuation of [Lullaby for a Cat](https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/23802748)
> 
> enjoy!

Friday morning, Dongho walks down the streets of Cheongdam with a bag in his hand. Despite the bustle of people passing him, some on their phones in professional conversations, some hand in hand with their child tucked to their side, he can only see the dark lines of the sidewalk as he keeps walking. 

Three steps until he reaches the next crack in the pavement, another three as he passes the next crack, two as he reaches the third only because he walked just a bit too fast, five now—

Dongho stifles the cry stuffed in his throat when he lurches forward. The bag clutched to his side almost spills to the cement, but he quickly catches himself. Only a green apple stumbles out of the bag, rolling down the curb and settling onto sewer gates. 

“Dongho, walk faster, please,” Minhyun says as he looks back at Dongho. The ruby leash in his hand is wrapped twice around a large fist, his knuckles turning just as red as the real leather from how hard he gripped it to pull forward. “I have a meeting soon, baby.”

“Sorry,” Dongho mumbles as he strides to Minhyun’s side. 

Minhyun smiles, eyes thinning as he loosens the leash, and places a hand on the small of Dongho’s back. The light pressure tells the hybrid to keep up with the man, even though Minhyun’s long legs stretch on and on and his heels click rapidly against the sidewalk. 

It’s not as if Dongho could complain. The loafers on his feet squish uncomfortably with each step, and the paper bag with pounds of fresh produce weighs down his left arm, but he keeps up with a red, sweating face.

When they reach the high rise apartment, and the doorman greets them both in, they step into an empty elevator where Minhyun presses the bright red 15. 

“What’re your plans tonight?” Minhyun asks as he throws an arm over Dongho’s shoulders, tucking the tiger into his side and resting his chin on Dongho’s blond head. 

“Aren’t you busy?”

Minhyun nods.

“Yeah. But I like having you at home. Feels lively, hm?”

Dongho knows he has plans tonight at his own place. His queen bed and messy sheets wait for him to slip into, the laptop with the black screen waits to be turned on and sifted through, and his incredibly comfortable pajamas are unfolded on his bed. 

Minhyun’s apartment, though, it’s cold and minimal to the sight. The view to Seoul is beautiful, of course, when the curtains are pushed back, but the black linoleum floor chills his feet up to his shins the more he stands at the window. Even the leather couch is cold to the back when he tries to settle deep into its cushions. And when Minhyun is gone for the early night, stuck in yet another meeting, the king bed is too big to bear. When Minhyun is there, however, Dongho finds it’s as cold as being alone, the arms that always hold him never enough combined with the sheets pulled up to his chin.

“I’ll stay, then,” Dongho replies as he looks up and faces himself in the elevator’s mirror-lined wall. There, he sees Minhyun smile and nuzzle his nose into his hair.

“I’ll buy you something good to eat when I get home,” Minhyun says as he takes deep breaths. The pleasant fragrance of strawberry has him close his eyes and lean further into Dongho. “Meat?”

The palate on his tongue begs for spicy Shin Ramen and two slices of cheap, fat-filled pork belly instead. Beef makes his stomach rumble, as to which Minhyun laughs at, but, really, he still craves the simple meal. Dongho always ate it on Friday nights, so is it an unwanted condition, a little meal that he salivates like those trained dogs for despite having lost it so long ago? 

Looking at Minhyun, Dongho can’t ever imagine eating such a cheap meal with him. It would be a joke, actually, watching such an expensive man indulge like that. Perhaps it isn’t the food that his stomach aches for, then.

Dongho hums in agreement and rests his head on Minhyun’s collarbones. Jo Malone cologne wafts up to his nose, as to which his nose scrunches to. He escapes the spice by turning and burrowing himself into the neat lapels of Minhyun’s wool coat.

“Cute,” Minhyun whispers into his hair. “I can’t get enough of you.”

The elevator comes to a stop and dings as the door slides open. Just in front of them, a black door stands shut and silent. Beyond, Minhyun’s apartment, untouched, lies still, waiting for Dongho to settle into.

With the produce clutched in his hands, Dongho untangles himself from Minhyun’s hold and steps out. The cologne disappears off into the cool air where the cold already starts to seep in past his thin shirt. 

“Dongho-yah.”

He turns around. Minhyun stands with his head tilted and arms crossed. 

“You’re not going to ask me for a kiss?” A pink, thin lip juts into a pout as Minhyun waits with a tapping foot. 

The grip on the grocery bag loosens and Dongho sighs. As the collar chafes around his neck, and the leash tangles itself around his legs as it drags against the ground, he slowly walks back into Minhyun’s arms.

When they kiss, Minhyun’s hands bunching Dongho’s shirt into a wrinkled mess and exposing his waist to the drifting air, Dongho closes his eyes and lets himself go. His lips part for the tongue that jabs into his mouth and hungrily licks all over, his head tilts back as Minhyun continues to tower over him. Minhyun gasps and groans low in his throat and pants directly into Dongho’s pliant mouth, never once letting up from either his rough touch or kisses. His own arms stay dangling by his side, only his own little pants hardly making a noise.

When Minhyun’s greedy tongue eventually cuts itself over a sharp canine, they pull away and Dongho softly pats at the pouting man’s cheek. He can only be glad when his lungs feel so free now, the chest that constricted under Minhyun’s desperate touches open to the breeze that flows through a tiny air vent in the corner.

“I’ll see you tonight, Minhyun-ah,” he says with a small smile before stepping off for the last time. 

The elevator door slides closed, and Dongho watches as Minhyun’s giddy smile and thick, flowing coat disappears behind steel doors. When he opens the door and steps into an apartment that echoes his footsteps, only then does his face fall as to how he wants it to.

* * *

It’s Thursday night when Dongho picks up the phone and dials the first number he finds in his contacts. The only light that illuminates his sight comes from the tablet resting on his bent knees and the phone that rings in a constant shrill. 

The phone rings three times, and his fists clench into his shorts. He hopes desperately _ , _ with wide, unblinking eyes at the name that flashes by in a slow slide. On the fifth ring, the phone picks up.

“Dongho?”

“Come over,” Dongho says. He hears a sigh over the phone, despite the crack of static, it’s loud and resigned.

“I can’t,” the man says.

“I miss you.”

He grips the back of his phone harder, as if he hopes the man he’s talking to can feel how desperate he is from miles away. 

“She’s home,” Aaron replies. It sounds final.

But, Dongho stares down at his tablet, and it glares back harder than he musters.

“I don’t care.” He pleads, he begs as sweetness slips into his voice. “Please.”

“Dongho--”

“I need you here,” he sobs. 

There’s a pause over the call, and in that moment, silence still feels too loud, especially when he can hear Aaron shuffle around. Probably in pajamas, probably in bed, probably waiting for her to join him. 

“I’ll,” Aaron hisses as he stops talking, his hand then muffles the speaker as a separate conversation happens beyond Dongho’s reach. The next words, so clear and gentle, say, “I’ll be there.”

The phone clicks off, and the dark screen slips from his hold as his shoulders buckle from their weight. As blank as his phone screen, as empty as the canvas of his bedroom wall, Dongho slides down his pillows and buries into his sheets.

When Aaron will eventually ring his doorbell, hair messy and clothes unkempt from the quick drive, Dongho will deliver what the man wants. Aaron had been so quick to deny him, but Dongho knows him, knows what he needs, because he subtly begged for it. It was in the way he mumbled clear apologies while smiling softly at the sight of her brushing her hair, in the way he clambered out of bed and asked her if she wanted anything to eat, and in the way his silver band is stuffed inside the drawer that’s never opened by anyone.

Dongho doesn’t care. He did, once, when familiar laughter and dinner plans were made right next to him, as if he was nothing but a small figure of decoration, lifeless and breathing on the gray carpet. But the silver wedding ring lost its novelty, and he’s stopped feeling so lonely. 

Or, perhaps, the feeling of a small frame covering his own broader one from behind gives him just the slightest feeling of something he’s been chasing for years. It’s not the same, he almost cries out when his face is pushed into the sheets and he’s used over and over again. He takes it silently and doesn’t snatch back distant hands that curl up to Aaron’s self when they’re done either.

When morning comes, Aaron only leaves an indent in Dongho’s bed and a heavy stack of bills that blankly stares back at the hybrid once he wakes up. Aaron left, but it already feels better once the purchase is made on a dim tablet screen.

* * *

On Saturday night, instead of settling into his own bed, Dongho stands in line behind hundreds of people with a cap pulled over his eyes. 

He stands alone out in the open, only a thin cardigan stretched over his shoulders enough to keep him huddling under the night sky. Loud conversations drift in and out of range despite the cap pulled tight over his ears.

“Yah, aren’t you excited?” Her friend giggles and nods in rushed excitement, hands grabbing tightly onto her tote bag where a thin lightstick peeks out. 

“We waited for months, don’t even ask me that,” she replies before breaking down into laughter. 

The line moves forward, and he steps forward. The lights from the stadium get brighter, then, and he squints at the ground as the entrance grows bigger. 

The girl nudges at her friend’s elbow and asks, “Which one are you focusing on?” She sighs and clutches her phone to her chest. “I bet Jeonghan’s fucking crazy handsome on stage.”

“Yah,” her friend scoffs, as if it’s all so obvious, “didn’t I tell you?” 

The girl shrieks as her friend lightly smacks her on the arm before madly giggling.

“Ah, sorry, sorry, I forgot,” she says before clapping her hands together and bowing, “forgive me.”

Her friend smiles before turning to the front where the stadium stands tall and proud. 

Spotlights whirl around inside, colors changing to the heavy bass that travels from built in speakers to the ground they stand on. It hits deep within Dongho’s chest, and he crosses his arms even tighter to contain the odd feeling that thumps within.

“Isn’t it obvious? Only Kim Jonghyun can own the stage like that.”

The line is ushered forward again, and the two girls brush through the security check before disappearing into the dark stadium, arms linked and steps light. 

“Next,” the guard calls out. 

Dongho steps up, holding out the tickets, and passes the metal barrier. 

“Barrier?” The guard points to the very front where the stage lies, dark and stretching on a long length. “Just keep going straight.”

There’s only one spot he walks for as his sneakers squeak in the empty hallway. It’s cold, the feel of metal under his fingers as he grips the barrier and comes up to face the stage, black and polished until it shines. 

He’s nervous. 

Excited. 

Scared.

People bunch around him, pushing at his shoulders and bumping against his back, but he only curls his tail around his thigh and continues to look on. The countdown on stage ticks a second at a time, where only five minutes stand between him and what he came for.

When the phone in his pocket buzzes twice, it’s either Mingi who begs him to join his after party or Minhyun who simply misses him while stuck in his empty apartment.

_I’m busy tonight_

8:46 PM

It’s been two years and three months since he’s had to send that text. It’s unfamiliar to his fingers, typing out each character slowly and watching it send with a quick load of the message bar.

_been so long since you told me that_

_I miss seeing you already :(_

_mingyu says he misses you more than the runway b_ _ut you know I want you the most, right?_

_let's go out tomorrow_

**Choi Mingi** \- 8:48 PM

_baby ㅠㅠ_

_come over_ again

**Hwang Minhyun** \- 8:49 PM

His phone is silenced and turned off. The messages stay unread on his home screen. 

His attention doesn’t belong to anyone else tonight. Not Mingi and his model friends, not Aaron and the cozy wife in his bed, not even Minhyun who could wrap him up twice in his arms and lull them both to an empty sleep. Dongho’s focus goes into the fists that clench tightly on the metal barrier and the glimmering stage that dims with the stage lights.

Tonight, Dongho forgets his lonely days and simply indulges.

* * *

Despite the hat covering his hair, and despite the pins that clip his ears close to his head, the screams of the crowd and the pounding synths rumbles from his head to curled toes. It pricks at his temples, the way shrieks pierce from right next to him, and while he wants to curl up right over the metal barrier, he stands straight. 

He can’t lose himself now, not when he spent so many nights propped up on his elbow staring at familiar faces that coldly closed their eyes in slumber, blissfully unaware of just how fucking lonely he felt lying next to their warm, bare bodies. All the years he spent scrolling through endless pages of worthless articles, looking for that  _ one _ word that could finally put him at ease, and when he finally stumbled upon a tiny banner propped up above a small cafe’s shop window, it hit him that this was what he lived for.

The music rumbles in the worst kind of way, the cheering forcing his teeth to grind harsh, but he looks up. He looks up, and he sees flashing outfits, limbs that stretch out to grab at still air, and faces that stretch upwards in the most gorgeous of smiles for each and every person there. Each one passes by in a rushed blur, bouncing and grinning with two waves of their hands, and Dongho passes them, gaze sliding curiously from stranger to stranger. It almost sinks into his chest, then, after the fourth face whose features he can’t pick out any day of the year runs by, and when his hands slid down the metal barrier, the one who walks by in a slow stride stops just right in front of him, shoes tirelessly polished, and Dongho looks up again.

And he loses his breath. 

It’s possible, his lungs may have collapsed under the pressure his heart gives him as Dongho finds him. His eyes, so familiar that Dongho doesn’t need to come any closer to remember how dark they are despite the many lights shining down on him. The body he so desperately knows from time lengths away is now but a sweet memory from yesterday, and it freezes in its beautiful form as Dongho finds him. 

Kim Jonghyun. 

It’s been so long, feels like he’s lived through one out of his nine lifetimes since he last held the man he admired so much. Even now, Dongho wants to climb up on the stage and fall right back into his arms.

His lover. 

How he looks so good in his stage clothes, black and white fishnet hiding a secret thousands of others want to know but a home he was always invited into. The way he moves, strong and snapping each limb into the perfect position, the way he glides past the rows of fans that scream for him, the way he looks out into the crowd, smiling and  _ happy _ and--

And Jonghyun looks right at him.

A time ago, Dongho would’ve laughed at the way Jonghyun would readily drop any and all that he was doing when Dongho called. 

“Puppy,” Dongho cooed and stroked at Jonghyun’s hair when he would suddenly appear. Even when Jonghyun became flustered and pouted, his eyes widened so much staring up at Dongho in waiting, his hands still wandered across Dongho’s arms and asked him what exactly he wanted. 

Because Jonghyun cared, and Jonghyun loved.

Now, Dongho looks up at a gloriously shining man donned in ropes of fabric that must comfortably caress each inch of skin, hair combed and primed in such a specific direction that Dongho thinks it could almost pass as an effortless thing, and face painted so beautifully that actually no, it couldn’t be Jonghyun, not his Jonghyun. 

Dongho feels himself moving, and when his own hand comes into view reaching up for one shining star moving so fluidly and calmly, he almost darts back when Jonghyun leans down on a knee.

“Jonghyun,” Dongho calls out, voice probably drowned out by the calls of tens of others around him that vye for the same attention he’s been given, so he screams even louder, “Jonghyun!”

Dongho’s hand reaches far out from his reach, but it’s still not enough to even scrape the rounded edge of the stage. Jonghyun still kneels on a single knee, microphone held by his side, and he still stares at Dongho.

“Jonghyun, please,” Dongho cries when Jonghyun gets up. 

Jonghyun’s whisked off to the end of the stage by a friendly arm slung over his shoulders. The back he spent mornings draped over feeling the sunlight stream down his hair leaves as quickly as Jonghyun had snuck back into his small life. It’s just as devastating as it had been so long ago.

When tears gather and bunch up his eyelashes, Jonghyun and his members bow deeply to the crowd who roar their names so fiercely it compels Dongho to join in the harmonious call for their beloved star.

And when the lights click on, shining down harsh fluorescence right into his red eyes, Dongho gathers himself and walks out of the venue. He brushes past the row of banners that all display the same person he used to keep as his own secret a time ago, winces when Kim Jonghyun is uttered not by his own mouth but by people who begin to love him just as Dongho did.

* * *

Saturday night, hours after the ringing in his ears have finally stopped and the city below his windowsill has quieted down to only the buzzing of street lamps, Dongho has settled into his home. The clock hanging up on the wall right next to the kitchen cabinet ticks continuously, hands reaching around at the darkest hour of the night and telling Dongho  _ it’s useless, stop waiting, stop caring, it's over. _ The slow slide of his heavy eyelids relay the same sentence until his chin slips from the palm holding it up.

The doorbell rings a quick three note chime, and his eyes snap open to the blank white wall in front of him. With a lazy hand, he rubs at his hooded eyes and slips off the kitchen stool. When the door opens, it’s only a shadow that blurs in front and he freezes.

“What—“

He’s pulled into a hug so quickly and so tightly it takes more than ten seconds for him to feel anything.

When he does pull out of it, shock ebbing away from his veins, he realizes for the second time that night. It’s unmistakable, the pressure around his shoulders and the face that fits so perfectly into his neck at his height. 

It can’t. 

_ It can be him, _ the clock taunts.  _ Does it hurt? _

When Dongho moves, and his hands come up to feel at the strong shoulders holding onto him, he misses a breath.

“I missed you so much,” Jonghyun says, arms wrapping tighter around Dongho’s shoulders. “Tiger, my tiger, I—“

“Yah, Kim Jonghyun,” Dongho says as he pushes Jonghyun off of him. 

His voice shakes just as unsteady as his legs feel backing up further into his apartment. Without the arms that pull Dongho into a warm chest, however, his cold marble floor seems like ice that pinches at his toes. When a couch bumps against the back of his calves, Dongho drops right onto the linen cushions, hands springing back to hold himself up against Jonghyun who towers over him.

“Dongho,” Jonghyun calls as he toes towards Dongho. His voice is soft, his low timbre creeping just as his feet does, and his face so downcast that he looks up with eyes that could strike pity in the steel of hearts. “Dongho, I’m here.”

“I’m,”  _ glad? _ Dongho looks up. Jonghyun smiles, the tiniest lift of corners that makes him feel like a feral, caged animal.  _ Angry? _ Dongho looks at Jonghyun’s arms, bare and moving towards him, and he doesn’t flinch. He settles instead, something that wouldn’t be so dangerous to his heart. “Why are you here?”

Jonghyun’s eyes soften, as if he was scared for the way Dongho’s body caged itself back in towards himself. With a thump that rattles at the couch, Jonghyun falls to the hardwood floor and rests careful hands on Dongho’s thighs. He doesn’t grip at them the way he used to, doesn’t dig fingers in and create tiny bruises that he would kiss away just minutes later. Instead, he rests them against Dongho’s skin, just to  _ feel, _ and looks up.

“I came back,” he says, a blunt fact coming from his lips that turns Dongho’s lips into a frown. When Dongho lowers his eyes, Jonghyun stops. Breathing, moving, feeling. “Are you… not happy?”

Dongho laughs, a short, cut out laugh that bites off the top of his tongue and folds his fingers into the linen couch.

“How long has it been, Jonghyun-ah?” He slowly curls a hand up Jonghyun’s jaw, pulling it upwards until the tendons in the star’s neck strains and Dongho’s form darkly looms over. “Since you left me.”

Dongho knows the answer, knows that Jonghyun could spit the number right out there, and yet they stare at each other to the rhythm of a ticking clock. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun whispers as he lets himself be bared open. The hands on Dongho’s knees tighten until Jonghyun crawls even closer. “I’m so sorry, tiger, I—“

“You finally reached your dreams, huh? Finally became the big star you always wanted to be without me distracting you?”

Jonghyun’s eyes narrow.

“I did this for us, Dongho,” he stresses. His hands come up to rest against Dongho’s back, the curve of his palm fitting right where the arch forms. “I told you I wanted you to not worry.”

_ “Not _ to worry? Jonghyun-ah,” Dongho spits out, fingers digging further into Jonghyun’s jaw, “you left me to cling to other people for years. Now that you’re famous, you think I’ll kiss you just like I do them?”

Jonghyun flinches abruptly and clearly.

“No, but you don’t love them like you do me, don’t you?” Jonghyun shakily says as his hands run up Dongho’s thighs, lightly squeezing. “Dongho, I spent so many nights thinking about you. I can finally take care of you now, it’s not just a fucking dream for us now.”

It isn’t some impossibly unattainable fantasy anymore. When Jonghyun ran around from the tiny two floor building to the restaurant two blocks over to Dongho’s high rise apartment in just his baggy jeans, it had been a loose illusion. Now, clothed in diamonds and soft fishnet, Jonghyun doesn’t run away towards the blinding lights. He buries himself in Dongho’s slowly breathing stomach and feels cotton tickle at his nose.

“Believe me, please, Dongho,” Jonghyun begs, voice trembling as he buries his face in Dongho’s stomach, “just let me take care of you from now on.” 

When Jonghyun looks up, he meets a scrunched up face that bunches together so tightly it feels like Dongho will burst at any second. He slowly stands up, pulling the limp hybrid up with him and into his waiting arms.

Nosing his way into Dongho’s soft hair, Jonghyun lets the tiny sighs brush against his shoulder. 

“I worked so hard for you, my tiger,” he murmurs to a twitching, spotted ear, his eyes so close that even the tiny fur blowing against the air can be seen and he wants to coo. It’s a familiar sight; adorable, warm, reminiscent. “All I wanted to do was see you again.”

“So why,” Dongho chokes, “why did you take so long?”

“It was the best I could do,” Jonghyun says. Endless practicing, nonstop rationing, all the little things he never even considered, it took so much for him to run up to the golden doors of the high rise building.

It is real, of course, when Jonghyun says it. He did his best. 

Dongho’s chest feels tight, a squeezing grip right on his ribcage that wants to burst out and shake Jonghyun by the shoulders, screaming _ Why did it have to take two years, Jonghyun-ah, why  _ and yet his light hands curl around Jonghyun’s waist and accepts it. He looks forward, meeting large, hopeful eyes that flicker from every feature of his face, asking for something Dongho could easily give. 

Dongho doesn’t answer. 

He takes. 

He pushes forward, and his mouth, the one that’s been taken by so many people so many nights, innocently and curiously presses against Jonghyun’s just as it did so many years ago. It can’t ever be enough once they fold perfectly against each other, lips parting and drinking in warmth like it’s been a hundred decades for them.

Even when they’re pressed together from their moving lips to their entangled legs, Jonghyun pushes them forward to the last door at the end of the hallway. He still remembers everything: the print that dangles on the wall, the light switch that only takes a flick of his right hand to turn on, the bed that’s so soft that Dongho springs back up into his arms when Jonghyun drops them.

They break apart, mouths open and stealing their own share of breath. Jonghyun looks down in such a long time, sees the body he dreamt of in cramped dorms and the man he longed for as he sang his best in booths. 

“You’re still so beautiful,” Jonghyun says in awe, eyes lined with twinkles that come from the sheer layer of wetness amongst his bottom line. 

Dongho wants to shy away, hide under his pillow or blanket and wrap his tail around his wrists to shield his eyes, but he doesn’t. Jonghyun looks at him, and it’s so comfortable, so arousing, and he wants to show off now. 

“And you’re still mine?” Dongho asks as his back arches and his arms spread out, a lovely invitation meant only to ruin him.

Jonghyun laughs, abruptly and loudly, before diving back into Dongho’s spread arms. An arm slides right under the arch created, nice silk sheets cool against his forearm, and the other wraps around a golden thigh, pulling it towards his waist.

“Always,” Jonghyun says with finality before sealing his words right on Dongho’s collarbone. He trails a long line of saliva along Dongho’s chest, tracing over the black lettering, before gently enveloping a nipple with his mouth.

Nothing’s changed between them. Jonghyun’s a successful debuted star, and now thousands recognize the face that once sweat over plumes of barbecue smoke, and Dongho, the color of his hair has only lightened. But still, Jonghyun always figures out how to support the weight of Dongho’s arched back, just so the hybrid can comfortably stretch and moan a pretty voice. 

When Dongho’s chest is slick and sore with light teeth marks circling his red nipples, Jonghyun slides upwards and kisses him again.

“Jonghyun,” Dongho whimpers between long slides of their tongues, “Jonghyun, fuck me again.” 

The slow drip of wetness between his cheeks stains the sheets under, and when Jonghyun slips two fingers along the curve, he pulls back and groans deep into Dongho’s mouth.

“I missed you so fucking much, baby.” 

Jonghyun fucks Dongho like there’s only a handful minutes left of their time there. His hands come to rest right under Dongho’s ass, grappling with each handful while his hips roughly slap against the trembling body. Sweat drips down his face, rolling down his jaw and splashing against Dongho’s length dribbling with precome, but Jonghyun doesn’t stop, chasing after his own release that builds sharp and sweet in his stomach.

Dongho moans, screams, whines for Jonghyun to come closer to him, his palms begging to run against the smooth, flexing back of his human. It feels so good, almost overwhelming that Dongho wants to surrender to it and flop limp against the bed for Jonghyun to just  _ take. _ But the small distance between them, as Jonghyun straightens his back to drive himself deeper, feels heavy.

Dongho fills it, the inches that his fingertips can’t seem to close, with his mouth by panting and whimpering, “I love you, want you forever, want you to stay by me until the world ends, Jonghyun-ah.” 

Jonghyun gasps for air, then, when it’s not the dirty speed he set fucking into a wet hole or the bruising hold he has on soft skin, but the desperation he hears in Dongho’s voice that calls for him.

“Dongho,” he replies straight out of breath, heaving so much his chest burns, “you’re so perfect. My tiger, my beautiful tiger. I’ll stay with you until you’re fucking sick of me.”

Jonghyun roars into the air as his toes curl up behind his knees, hands digging deep indents into the pliant ass in his grip, and drops down to cover Dongho’s slippery chest with his own.

When they kiss, and Dongho’s arms can wrap around Jonghyun’s neck, they both cry for each other’s name to fit in their touch. It’s so fulfilling, Dongho realizes as Jonghyun fills him up from his tear streaked lips to his greedy body, that he’s unsure of how he ever lived without him.

The still night drags on outside the window, the silk curtains parting loosely to frame the neon bright city lights just floors away. The subtle noise of taxis and cars and Seoul itself stops just at the glass window, unable to disturb both Jonghyun and Dongho who quietly pant into each other’s arms as they lie down together.

For once, Dongho doesn’t shove a cold blanket over his feet and close his eyes to the faint outline of a small body that’s left for something real. He stuffs his toes into the bend of Jonghyun’s knees and shuffles right under where Jonghyun’s jaw slides down to a warm neck.

It’s warm. A furnace, even. They’re both bare under gray sheets, but Jonghyun’s arms provide more than anything Dongho’s felt. He shuffles his legs, twists his torso around a bit, and when his chest presses against Jonghyun’s slow breathing, he looks up.

“Don’t  _ ever _ leave me again,” Dongho says with a tremble in his voice. His ears remain flattened on top of his head, so much of the noise around him only focuses on the soft breaths of the one holding him and his shaking chest.

Jonghyun’s smile is guilty, he’s sure of it. His eyebrows slide like shutters down his bare face, his lips remain flat despite the corners of his mouth lifting just for him.

“I’ll always be by your side, Dongho,” Jonghyun says. A hand strokes at Dongho’s cheek, gentle and familiar, and he nuzzles into it. 

Dongho tightens his embrace further, up until Jonghyun squirms from the pressure and pushes Dongho backwards until his back hits the bed. With Jonghyun hovering over him with such sincere eyes and strong arms, the emotions in his chest well up like a spring fountain.

Tears start to slip down his face one by one as he asks, “You promise?”

Unlike so long ago, in the time when he felt so cold the walls of his house felt unbearable, Jonghyun doesn’t leave him behind. He doesn’t wipe his tears away with warm fingers then force that touch to float away to the open night.

Instead, Jonghyun wipes at his cheeks with firm thumbs and leans down until his forehead taps against Dongho’s. If Dongho wanted to, he could easily close his eyes and take what he’s been waiting for. Those lips, small and delicate brushing against his, were Dongho’s, still  _ are, _ and he could give into them just as his chest compels him to.

“I meant what I said, tiger,” Jonghyun says softly, breath caressing Dongho’s mouth with every syllable forming, “I’ll always come back for you.”

Rubies crystallized as flesh finally press down upon him, feeling so soft that it takes exactly nothing for Dongho to crane his neck upwards to taste even more. He’s crazy, or just so high off, he thinks, that just licking once past Jonghyun’s lips leaves his head spinning into a different dimension. One where his fantasy doesn’t fly off from the edges of Yanghwa Bridge’s fencing and down into its dark waters. 

Jonghyun will take care of him. Jonghyun will love him, stay with him until there’s nothing left and their lives have been completed. 

The Mondays spent in dark clubs and surrounded by hidden hands, the Tuesdays asking for things that never really felt as real as he wanted them to, the Wednesdays stealing what little attention he craved, it escapes him. 

* * *

Monday, Jonghyun wakes him up with a late, sloppy breakfast and a kiss to his forehead before slipping off into the company car and practicing for hours. Dongho sits under a soft blanket thrown over his head, laptop perched open and eyes glued onto the exciting show. When Jonghyun finishes, and the door to his apartment is opened, Dongho scrambles up into his arms and purrs at the scratches to his head.

Tuesday, Dongho curls up on Jonghyun’s bicep, and they both lazily stare at the rising sun that shines brightly on their faces. The early morning shower that beats hot water against sluggish bodies feels just right, with Jonghyun massaging coconut lather into his lover’s hair and kissing away at wet eyelids. 

Wednesday, Dongho turns off his phone and smiles right at Jonghyun’s groggy face eating cereal at the counter. 

“What is it?” Jonghyun tiredly asks.

“I’m moving,” Dongho says.

“What?” The spoon in Jonghyun’s mouth falls to the granite with a loud clatter, the milk spilling in droplets. “Do you not have enough? Dongho, I can—“

“I’m moving in with _ you,” _ Dongho says as he comes around to the kitchen counter. The space between Jonghyun’s spread thighs becomes occupied as he leans forward to wrap his arms around a thin waist. “Wanna be with you.”

He looks up, hopes his eyes sparkle just right under the light, just enough so he won’t have to exactly explain that there won’t be another Mingi, Aaron, or Minhyun ever and it’ll just be  _ them  _ every day and every night.

“Yah,” Jonghyun giggles as he clasps Dongho’s jaw with his hands, “you didn’t need to ask. I already made space for you anyway.”

Of course Jonghyun gets it. He always gets Dongho.

When Dongho’s face presses against the soft knit sweater, he softly whispers, “Why does my chest feel so full when I’m with you?”

It’s like time hasn’t passed, the way they move so effortlessly and flawlessly that the morning sun doesn’t seem to rise nor fall everyday. The thumping in Dongho’s chest hasn’t changed either.

“Because you love me,” Jonghyun easily replies, burying his lips into Dongho’s hair and kissing at the crown, “and I love you.”

“Your tiger?” He clings onto the stretching fabric from behind. Under Jonghyun’s kiss, his ears twitch and flatten, and his tail swirls in the air to catch Jonghyun's calf.

“My Tiger.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> follow my twt @ teacuptigr 
> 
> basically dongho & jr


End file.
